STI - 1 more hurdle to clear...

If it is going to show a true breakout to the upside.

The market showed considerable strength today, reversing all of yesterday's losses and more with a 1.9% gain to close at 2943.02. Gainers outnumbered loses by 360 to 129. Although the figures seem impressive, the volume of 1415M shares traded (compared to 1646 M the day before) was less so, and in fact quite mediocre.

STI made a high of 2946.28 today, a high close for the year but this is still slightly short of the high of 2947.08 attained on 11 Jan 2010. In order for a breakout to the upside to be possible, STI has to clear the hurdle of 2947 convincingly over the next several sessions. This could possibly stir more buying interest.

More and more index stocks are making new 52-week highs, such as Jardine C&C($31.28), KeppelCorp( $9.44) , Starhub ($2.36) and NOL ($2.15). However there are several laggards whose prices have yet to make new 52-week highs, such as Singtel($3.19) , Capitaland($4.04) and SGX($7.73) ( which is one of the most bearish stocks in the index now, currently below its 20, 50 and 200 day MA)

However, STI will also face considerable resistance at this level.

Take a look at the long-term chart. STI faces 3 resistance points at the 2950 level. If the breakout fails, it could result in a bearish double-top formation..

STI Mid-week update

Another week of consolidation for Asian markets. The STI, which still seems to be rather weak, rebounded off the low of 2706 before declining to 2750 on Thursday. With yesterday's bounce up, STI is much less oversold with a RSI reading of 30.

STI is still hovering around the 100 day SMA of 2753. Another possibility is for STI to retrace 50% to 61.8% of the recent move down over the next few weeks. 50% retracement is at 2825 while 61.8% retracement is at 2855. However I expect the STI to be consolidating in the 2720-2770 region for a few days. if 2780 is broken convincingly, we could see more upside. I do not expect the 2680-2700 level to be broken any time soon as there is some strong support in the area.

Meanwhile, the Hang Seng broke briefly below the 20000 level before rebounding strongly to a high of 20780. The SSE also hit a low of 2890 before rebounding strongly to its close of 2995 on Thursday.

In the US, the Dow recorded its best 2-day gain in 3 months- just a technical rebound or resumption of a bullish trend?